


Who He is (and Who He Used to Be)

by Elivira



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 100 words, Drabble, Drabbles, Gen, Homelessness, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, International Fanworks Day 2015, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Non-Chronological, OFC - Freeform, POV Outsider, Past Brainwashing, Red Room
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elivira/pseuds/Elivira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of interconnected, non-cronological 100 word drabbles centering on the Winter Soldier.</p><p>1. He is nothing, just a canvas waiting to be painted.<br/>2. He can't look at her, a child, playing the monsters game.<br/>3. He knows him, this man who can make him question everything he has ever been told.<br/>4. It feels right and for the first time in forever the Winter Soldier acts on a whim.<br/>5. They come back slowly; memories he thought would never return.<br/>6. He runs. Sometimes he knows what from, and sometimes he doesn't.<br/>7. He looks in the minor and all he sees is a stranger.<br/>8. There is a man in her alley. (Outside POV Interlude)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Canvas

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for International Fanworks Day 2015. I'm pretty fascinated with The Winter Soldier and have been meaning to write a oneshot for awhile and finally got around to it! Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I decided to continue this as a series of 100 word drabbles.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is nothing, just a canvas waiting to be painted.

When he wakes he is nothing but a blank canvas with only the bare minimum holding him together. Dark hair, pale skin, hard cloth and shining metal. He is nothing until they paint him with red. He listens to the silence (before they know he is awake), to the mission (who to find, who to kill), and he leaves the Room with nothing but what they give him. He is nothing but a shadow as he finds his target. Aiming his gun and shooting with accuracy he doesn't remember having. He is nothing but a canvas with marks of red.


	2. The Student

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can't look at her, a child, playing the monsters game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if it is canon for Natasha to be the Winter Soldier's student, but I saw it in a couple of fics and liked it enough that I went with it!

They bring him a little girl with curly red hair and old eyes. "Train her." They say. ' _To kill.'_ They don't continue. Natalia doesn't need much training, she's already dangerous in her own right. Looking at her makes him feel something he doesn't remember feeling before, so foreign is emotion that he cannot identify it. It hurts to look at her, a child, and so he doesn't. He teaches but he doesn't look. Until he does, for a moment he is someone else. They wipe him, he sleeps and when he sees her again, a woman now, she's a stranger.


	3. The American

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows him, this man who can make him question everything he has ever known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course you have to have the Captain!

The Winter Soldier knows him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that he does. Steve Rogers is his mission, though, so he ignores the feeling. The Soldier fights with moves that he has long forgotten learning and tries not to show his surprise when his mark can keep up. In his dreams there is a blond man and he wakes with a jerk, knife in hand and eyes wide. The Soldier sits, frozen, until fingers of red dot the horizon. The time comes and he fights, because he has, long ago, forgotten how to do anything else.


	4. What Feels Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels right and for the first time in forever the Winter Soldier acts on a whim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing about Bucky, but haven't has much time lately. Enjoy!

_‘This feels right.’_ The Winter Soldier thinks as he pulls Steve Rogers from the Potomac. _‘His mark’_ , something inside him screams, but he ignores it, his conditioning, for the first time in his fractured memory because saving this man feels right in a ways that nothing ever has; not the way he fights or the way Russian words come to him easier than English. _‘This feels right.’_ Saving this man feels right. He trudges out of the river, ignoring the way the water drips into his eyes, lays the man on the bank and basks in the _rightness_ of it.


	5. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They come back slowly; memories he thought he'd ever get back.

The first thing he remembers is a women screaming; shrill and terrified, before it cuts of abruptly. He has no idea who she is or why she's screaming, but she is and it echoes in his head whenever he closes his eyes.

(Years later, when he remembers her face, he's the one who feels like screaming.)

The second memory he has is a doctor, he doesn't remember the face, only the coat; long and white and full of needles. It's a sharp memory, cold and emotionless and all he remembers of the Red Room, something he vows he'll never forget.


	6. What can't be outrun? (Memories)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He runs. Sometimes he knows what from, and sometimes he doesn't.

He spends months running away, a familiure blonde haired, blue eyed face dancing behind his eyelids. He  finds a face he knows to be his on a wall (black and white and grainy) and it smiles back at him in a way the Winter Soldier cannot remember ever doing. 

He sits in Brooklyn diners that he doesn't remember ever going to, but it's there, a faint hint of recognition that he can't quite place. He travels (runs) from New York to Australia, from Alaska to Japan. But for once the Winter Soldier isn't leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.  


	7. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looks in the minor and all he sees is a stranger.

He looks in the mirror and a stranger stares back at him. A stranger eyes, a stranger's jaw, and a stranger's mouth. When the Winter Soldier looks in the mirror, he doesn't see himself. He's spent last year (or seventy) running. There is someone following him, bright blue eyes flash behind tired eyelids. He's always one step ahead, (or one step behind), because when he looks in the mirror, he sees a stranger. Sometimes he gets flashes of someone he might know, but it's gone in a moment. After all, Hydra took more than his memories, they took his identity.


	8. Interlude - Outside POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a man in her alley.

He sits in a dark alley, torn blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his hair hanging limply around his face. Metal fingers tap out an unknown beat against the dirty concrete. I see him here sometimes, when I’m looking for a place to hide from New York’s bitter cold. He’s terrifying in a way I can’t explain, and if he’s there, I always leave quickly.

  
I stare at him this time though, because it’s so cold and the alley is out of the biting wind. I take a chance.

  
“Can ah sir ‘ere?”

  
“Yes.” He says, voice scratchy from disuse.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, please comment!


End file.
